Tag Archives: feature

There’s little doubt BAM. has been pretty idle lately, being someone who writes for other sites, works a regular job and manages other network sites there’s not a ton of time to divide for personal projects like this site. Recently I’ve made some adjustments and I’ve realized that instead of chasing down the latest releases I’d just take a look through Steam instead and spend essentially the next year at least going through 300+ releases I own, not including older PC games, Origin, Uplay and anything else.

Will all the games be new? No, not really. Some might be super old but the point is to take a look at gaming a whole or at least games that I own . If I have to mod them to work I’ll note it and if I can recall how I came about the game I’ll note it as well, some of these were review samples ages ago and some were bundles that I bought, others were gifts from friends or family and honestly it’s kind of messy backtracking.

We’ll see how things go after the dust settles, for devs or publishers hoping to join into adventure… I have no idea what to say really. The contact page is there, my game selections will be at random (basically what I feel like taking on any specific day). I promise nothing for places in line, this is more about the experience and the adventure than getting someone launch day coverage, if it was I’d be like 15 years late on some of these games.

What will coverage entail? Right now I’ll start with writing, if I can get some time to record vocals and edit footage I’ll also include video, ideally I’d have video and text articles going up at the same time but I’m trying to manage expectations and reality now.

That said, let’s get this going, the first game up will be… well, why would I show that? I don’t even know yet but I will soon. Stay tuned.

At E3 this year I was able to catch a glimpse of Alien Rage, an sci-fi shooter aiming to bring back some memories from the old days of Unreal combined with score counters, combo levels and heavy levels of AI swarms and massive bosses. This isn’t Gears or COD, its a massive solo assault on a horde of bad guys set on total annihilation.

Our review focus on the PC version in single player mode, Alien Rage is launching soon and as the servers populate with traffic I’ll have a feature for that. The game takes place on a mining rock where humans and aliens clash over the most powerful potential fuel in the universe. Things go sour and soon the aliens are the only ones standing still, to even the score and keep the Earth safe, a lone soul lands and sets forward on fixing the score.

Alien Rage focuses on discovery (finding audio files to fill in the history) and massive amounts of survival and scoring players on how well they can do it. While this might seem easy, it’s actually rough because the AI rushes, shoots longer and uses technology beyond what players have. It’s a bit stacked against players and then you get the big boys, the guardians who occupy the main transitions it’s just a massive stab at proportional balance as they have bigger guns and just general size.

Thankfully there’s a motivator, Alien Rage has scoring, combos, achievements and well, scoring. Every combo, every headshot, every melee combo and successive streak rings with badges, bonuses and rewards for taking down hordes, it’s excessive to the point where you can run around even a minute later and have the game catch up with how much damage and how many streaks and combinations you’ve executed in a short spree just prior.

Action comes from a variety of weapons, machine guns, shotguns, rifles, rocket launchers and so much more. Each possessing primary and secondary firing options, for pure players, the primary presents a unique challenge to progression but it’s possible. Secondary firing modes are incredibly powerful, they are the equalizer to any flood and they decimate anything in their path. Alien Rage offers tons of options and it’s up to players to manage ammo and the best gun for the job before death just pours in from all sides.

This quick impressions video drives home all the reasons I loved checking out this game, if you can’t take people talking on video just skip to about 40 seconds and watch what I assembled for you.

Performance wise, the Unreal 3 engine continue challenging PC’s, Alien Rage delivers intense environments with heavy particles, detailed textures, depth of field and so many other options. It’s a gun’s blazing joy ride through a world of eye candy. On the test system (Phenom II X4, 7870) there haven’t been issues going into launch for speed and the frame rate at the recommended setting of High post-processing, medium textures and medium shadows ran at 60fps solid with few dips.

Coming in at $19.99 (15.99 if you pre-order) Alien Rage is a great value on the PC, the single player experience is incredible and long and torturing even for experienced players, crank up the difficulty and it will simply induce nightmares for weeks. If you’re on Xbox or Playstation, the game does not include online play but the single player is strong enough to keep players engaged.

PC gamers can find Alien Rage on Steam tomorrow, I suggest lining up early for those $4 off while it lasts.